


if they want me to hang

by sparkycap



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Established Relationship, Hopeful Ending, Humor, M/M, Palladium Poisoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-27 07:42:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9983315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkycap/pseuds/sparkycap
Summary: Building the suit had saved Nix's life. Part of him had hoped being Iron Man would be enough to save his soul. As it stood, the glorified magnet in his chest keeping his heart whole was slowly killing him, and he couldn't quite figure out what to do about that until S.H.I.E.L.D. stepped in.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Basically an Iron Man 2 AU with Nix as Tony and Dick as Pepper, minus every plot line other than the palladium poisoning. If you're not familiar with any of the movies, you should be able to enjoy the story just fine on its own (thanks to whip-pan for testing this for me), but in case you'd like a more thorough backstory: 
> 
> Nixon Industries is, for the most part, a weapons manufacturer. Lewis Nixon inherited the company from his father and prefers to stay away from the business side of things, focusing instead on the inventing and the publicity stunts. He gets kidnapped after a weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, and when they try to force him to build his latest weapon for them, he builds the Iron Man suit and escapes. This is what happens after.

Dick loved to swim, and Nix had always loved that about him.

It was one of the first things they’d ever talked about, a few minutes into the interview. Usually Nix didn’t bother with those, but he’d walked by at just the right time to see this gorgeous redhead sitting in his waiting room with the straightest posture he’d ever seen, hands flat on his thighs, wearing absolutely the wrong color tie.

Being richer than god did things to a man, and one of them was take away the need for any sort of brain to mouth filter. Nix had been born without one, because Nix had been born into an empire. It was an evolutionary thing. Nature getting rid of the unnecessary. So he’d stopped, all thoughts of lunch chasing each other out of his mind, and said, “Take off your tie.”

Maybe the thing that had endeared Dick to him most right from the start was that he hadn’t looked surprised. He’d just cocked his head, eyes flicking from his tie to Nix’s face and back, and said, “What?”

“Your tie. Take it off.” Nix shook his head, crooking his fingers. “No, too slow, lost your chance. Come here.”

Slowly, Dick had stood, and Nix dragged him closer by the dull red tie so he could reach the knot. He had it undone in a matter of seconds, tugging it out of Dick’s collar, and Dick had done nothing but stare at his hands. Finally he’d said, “I always figured you’d be rich enough to buy your own clothes.”

“I’m rich enough to buy _you_ ,” Nix had said. “ _This_ does not qualify as clothes. This is kindling. I mean it, I’m setting it on fire. Hell, give me the rest of your suit while I’m at it.”

“I can’t decide whether this is discrimination or sexual harassment,” Dick said.

Nix threw the tie in the trash.

“It’s a favor. If you want to wear red, dye your hair. Blue, my lovely ginger eskimo, is your new best friend. Purple, if you’re manly enough for that sort of thing.” He rubbed his palms together as if to brush off the cheap fabric, adding, “Green is always a good idea, but nothing too bright. And no lime, Christ, I hate lime green. Olive is nice. You might consider joining the army.”

Dick blinked slowly at him. “Funny you should mention that.”

“No shit? Good. I love soldiers, we get on great. I make weapons, you shoot them, very symbiotic,” he said. “Come with me, we’re going to lunch. You’re doing great so far, by the way.”

“With what, exactly?” Dick asked, following him toward the door without protest and straightening his collar as they went.

“Your interview. Strong candidate,” Nix said. He held the door for Dick to walk by him, eyeing him up and down as he did. “Are you a runner?”

“Sometimes,” Dick said. “Is there a lot of running involved in being your assistant?”

“God, no, I hate running,” Nix said. “Swimmer?”

“Sure, in high school,” Dick said.

“There it is,” Nix had said. “You’ve got the body. My next guess was ballet dancer.”

“Right,” Dick had said. “Well, that answers that.”

“Hm?”

“It was sexual harassment.”

“Don’t hold it against me. We’ve got a pool.”

The job had been Dick’s before they’d even gotten to the restaurant. He’d moved in not long after—in, as Dick assured him many times, a strictly professional sense—because it was easier all around and resulted in the both of them getting considerably more sleep. Nix had always tended to function on about three to four hours a night; Dick had gotten that bumped up to five or six, and it significantly lessened the amount of times Nix woke him up at three in the morning for emergencies that ranged from running out of root beer to setting himself on fire.

He hadn’t been lying about the pool. Dick was usually done using it by the time Nix woke up, but sometimes in that murky early morning window between the time Nix finished working and the time he went to sleep, he’d catch him doing laps. Dick had always looked so peaceful then. He used to love watching.

Things were different now, between them, mostly in a good way. When Nix woke him up in the middle of the night, it was often for much more pleasurable reasons.

And sometimes it wasn’t.

“Lew, wake up.”

When Dick got out of the pool, he looked ridiculous. Black trunks clinging to his thighs, clean chlorine water dripping down his chest, pooling in the hollow of his throat and begging for Nix’s mouth on him. Half the time he wouldn’t bother with the stairs, just heft himself up over the closest wall and trot over to herd Nix off to bed.

“Come on, Lew.”

Nix had never liked tap water. It always tasted unclean. Even the filtered stuff never compared to what you’d get out of a bottle. He’d said that to Dick once, and Dick had asked if he was talking about water or whiskey.

“Open your eyes.”

The water tasted like rust. It was dirty. He closed his eyes automatically when they forced his head down, and when he opened them he couldn’t see a thing.

“ _Lewis_.”

There were hands on him, hauling him bodily upright, and he woke up gasping, clutching, fingers twisted in Dick’s t-shirt. His mouth tasted like shit, but it was dry. Everything was dry—his eyes, his throat, Dick’s hands on his face.

After a long moment, he swallowed hard. “You need moisturizer. There’s—in the bathroom, there’s some—it’s sandalwood.”

Dick sighed. It was the relieved kind, Nix thought, but it was always hard to be sure with him. “Welcome back.”

“That bad?” Nix asked.

“One of the longer ones,” Dick said.

“Right,” he said. Nixons didn’t apologize, but Dick would know what it meant. He always did.

Nix rolled out of bed, and Dick’s hands on him tightened before they let go. “Where are you going?”

“To brush my teeth. Then—I don’t know. I want…” Nix wavered. No water. Dick would say no to whiskey. “I want a slushy.”

“A slushy.”

“Yeah. Blue raspberry.”

Nix found himself a pair of pants, and he looked up from pulling them on just in time to come face to face with Dick. Who simply cupped his jaw and tipped his face up to press a long kiss to his forehead, one that made Nix fidget. He wanted to move closer as much as he wanted to pull away, but he didn’t do either, and Dick rewarded him by saying, “Okay.”

In some twisted way, captivity had given him this. Nix had come home from Afghanistan to Dick, arc reactor and all, a glorified magnet in his chest keeping his heart unbroken, and Dick had decided when he was gone that he wasn’t letting him go. Nix had kissed him and then promoted him. Whatever else happened in between, those were the important things. The water over there tasted like blood. Dick had always been cleaner than anything else.

He didn’t swim so much lately, but Nix only loved him more.

…

The day Dick officially took over Nixon Industries, Nix knew for sure he was dying.

The possibility had occurred to him much earlier, but that was when he realized there was nothing to be done about it. The only thing that was keeping him alive was killing him, slowly spreading poison through his system and promising a painful death while he looked for an alternative to palladium that didn’t exist. He liked to think that was at least a little bit of an excuse for what came next.

“Nix, you got five minutes,” Dick said. He was sitting by the window in one of the big red chairs made more for design than comfort, looking like a king with his legs crossed and a pad in his lap.

“I’ll do it in three,” Nix said.

Across the ring, Harry laughed. “Let’s see you try.”

Boxing with Harry was his favorite way to avoid work. There was a lot of power packed in that pint-sized little body, and Nix liked the element of surprise. He could have hired some hulking body to be his driver-slash-bodyguard, but he would miss seeing the looks on people’s faces when he introduced Harry.

Three minutes in, Nix got distracted. It wasn’t hard to do that, granted, but Nix figured the man walking into the room right then would distract just about anyone.

He was dressed in tailored slacks and a black dress shirt, the kind of fabric that made Nix want to run his hands over it. Lithe body, marginally slimmer than Dick, and the way he walked drew the eye. Maybe because it was uncommonly graceful, maybe because he was gorgeous.

Nix turned to Dick and jabbed a gloved hand in the stranger’s direction. “That. _That_ is how you dress for a job interview.”

“He’s not here for a job interview, Lew, he already works here,” Dick said exasperatedly. “He’s our notary.”

“Maybe we should transfer him,” Nix said.

“To where?” Dick asked.

“I need a new assistant, right? I like him.”

“You need a new babysitter, and I’ve already lined up all the interviews.”

“Well, maybe we don’t need to do them. I like this, we’ve got a connection. Me and, ah, this one—” Nix took a swig of the chlorophyll that was keeping him functioning and shook off one of his gloves, snapping his fingers at the man until he swallowed and could ask, “You, what’s your name?”

“Ron.”

“Perfect. Nice and short, I’ll remember that.”

“Don’t count on it,” Dick said to Ron. “I’m sorry about him.”

Ron shrugged. “It’s fine. Could you sign here, sir?”

“Yeah, call him sir, he likes that. Don’t call me sir, call me Nix,” he said. “Since we’re going to be working together so closely.”

“No, you’re not,” Dick said.

“Excuse him, he’s grumpy. Harry, go a round with Ron, would you?” Nix asked. Harry waved his assent, and Nix gave a satisfied nod. “Ron—see, I’m remembering—you can box, can’t you?”

“Sure,” Ron said easily.

“You’re so agreeable,” Nix told him. “Get outta here, kiddo, Mommy and Daddy need to talk about your grades.”

Dick followed him back to the chairs by the window, sighing just loud enough for him to hear. “Who’s Mommy, in this scenario?”

“You, I think. It’s distasteful, I know, but Daddy and Daddy doesn’t have quite the same ring. Daddies, maybe. The more I say it the creepier it sounds.” Nix pulled up a search as he spoke, and then called, “Ron, spell your last name for me.”

“S-E-A-R-S.”

After a moment of swiping through the results, Nix whistled. “Oh, wow. Straight A’s.”

“No dirt?” Dick asked.

“He modeled in Japan,” Nix said. “Did you model in Japan?”

Dick leaned over him to look. “Is that his only qualification?”

Nix turned to look at him. “Are you jealous? You don’t have to be jealous.”

“I’m not jealous.”

“You sound a little jealous.”

“Lew, cut it out.”

“Honey, I’m just saying—”

Dick kissed him briefly, harshly, and nothing has ever worked to shut him up so fast. When he pulled away, he sounded like he was relenting a bit. “He speaks eight languages.”

“Were you reading that while we were kissing?” Nix asked. “Dick, were you—”

Dick squeezed his hand and stood. “Quiet now, Daddy’s got work to do.”

Just then, Ron flipped Harry to the mat and had him pinned by the shoulders between one blink and the next. He looked entirely unruffled, clothes unwrinkled and hair still curling perfectly over his forehead. Nix turned beseechingly to Dick.

“I want one.”

“No.”

…

More often than not, Nix got his way. It was one of those laws of nature. Spoiled brats turn into spoiled adults. Even Dick was susceptible to it, but now that Nix wasn’t paying him anymore he liked to think that was just down to his charm and good looks.

They transferred Ron.

It was a decision Nix was very happy with, to a point. Ron was incredible, frighteningly competent on the level of Dick Winters himself. Hardly anything seemed to faze him. Nix sometimes gave him the most outlandish requests he could think of just to hear Ron repeat it back to him in that flat, neutral tone.

It had its downsides. The point came when Ron brought him dinner and used that lovely bluntness to say like it was nothing, “Why haven’t you told Dick you’re dying?”

“That’s Mr. Winters to you,” Nix said.

“He prefers Dick,” Ron said impassively.

Nix grinned. “I know.”

Ron’s lips twitched. “That’s cute.”

“Sit down. Eat with me. Are you hungry?” Nix shook his head. “Never mind, I don’t care, eat anyway. I can’t relax with you just sitting there staring at me like that.”

Obediently, Ron picked up a pair of chopsticks. “So?”

“So, who says I’m dying?”

“You did. When you told me you’ve got palladium in your chest.”

“Figured it out just from that, did you?”

“There were other signs.”

Nix considered him. “Didn’t take you for a science man. Is there an M.D. I missed somewhere in all those impressive qualifications?”

Ron shrugged. “I know a guy.”

“You’re just full of mysteries, aren’t you,” Nix said.

“I’m an open book,” Ron said.

“It’s impressive how you say that with a straight face.”

“It’s impressive how consistently you lie to the man you love.”

“I’m not—” Nix stopped himself, taking a breath. He snagged a carton of rice and glared at it instead of Ron. “It’s not lying. I’m just choosing not to mention it.”

Ron tilted his head like he didn’t quite see the difference. “Is it because you don’t want to worry him until you’ve figured out how to fix it, or is it because you don’t think you can fix it?”

“Are you a shrink now too?” Nix asked.

“No, but I think I’d be a good one,” Ron said.

“Good interrogator, maybe, Christ,” Nix muttered. A thought occurred to him. “Hey, Ron, have you ever tortured anyone? You might’ve missed your calling.”

Ron smiled serenely.

It was a little terrifying.

When Nix thought he’d let the topic lie for long enough that Ron wouldn’t call him on changing the subject, he said, “You know it’s my birthday this weekend.”

Ron nodded and leaned back in his chair, crossing his legs and fishing out a piece of chicken. “I didn’t get an invite to the party.”

“Yeah? Bring up some bad memories?” Nix studied him thoughtfully and decided, “You were probably an awkward kid, right, couldn’t have been too popular?”

“I was the prom king,” Ron deadpanned. Nix couldn’t tell if he was joking.

“Your invite was implied,” he said. “Tell me something.”

Ron waited patiently.

“If you knew this was the last birthday you’d ever have,” Nix said, “what would you do with it?”

There was a long pause while Ron stared at him searchingly. Nix wasn’t sure what he was looking for; he’d already known he was sitting with a dead man. Finally, he said, “I don’t think it’s about what you do so much as who you do it with.”

“That’s downright poetic,” Nix said.

“Pretty sure it’s common knowledge, actually,” Ron said.

Nix shook his head. “It’s romantic. Don’t downplay this, it’s a big moment for you. Like in The Wizard of Oz, when they found out the tin man really did have a heart all along.”

Ron gave a wry smile and tapped the center of his chest, the same place where Nix’s arc reactor glowed white-blue through his shirt. The light was almost pretty now, the color of fire when it got hot enough. Nix had called his kidnapping and subsequent return a phoenix metaphor. Looking back it seemed more like a cautionary tale. A lesson on pride and gluttony and what they did to false idols.

Looking back, it seemed more like The Wizard of Oz. When he woke up in a cave with a bulky car battery attached to his chest the only thing keeping the shrapnel out of his heart, that was his big moment, the moment he’d realized he really did have one after all.

And then he’d built himself a tin man.

As if Ron knew all of this without needing to hear a word, he said, fingertips still resting against his heart, “Not all of us have the proof on hand.”

It was an interesting way to put it. “Where’s your proof?”

“New Mexico,” he said.

Nix knew better than to ask.

…

The problem was that Nix was actually _horrible_ at lying to Dick. Spectacularly bad at it, really, even when he wasn’t doing uncharacteristic things like skipping the usual wild party to spend his birthday alone with Dick in Chicago. And it was unfortunate, because lying was usually among Nix’s best skills.

His imminent death, that he could keep a secret. The fact that Ron was super spy that could kill a man with his bare hands in approximately eighteen different ways and that S.H.I.E.L.D. was genuinely invested in keeping him alive, that was a little harder to keep to himself.

“Why am I surprised?” Nix was appalled at the hit his observational skills had took from this whole palladium-poisoning ordeal. He looked between Ron and Director Sink, the two of them sitting side-by-side in the booth opposite him looking every inch the secret government agents they were. “I’m not surprised. This makes so much more sense.”

“You had a lot on your mind,” Ron said, like he was trying to be comforting.

Sink nodded. “Lucky for you, son, we can help with that.”

That was the moment Ron slid into his side of the booth in the little pastry shop they’d cornered him in and jabbed a needle into his neck. Nix yelped, cringing away. “Is this the part where I start to lose consciousness? Are you kidnapping me? Because let me tell you, I’ve done that, and it’s getting a little old.”

“It’s lithium dioxide,” Ron said. “It’s not a cure, but it lessens the symptoms.”

“An easier death,” Nix said. “That is helpful.”

“Oh, it’s better than that.”

And thus Nix spent the entire ride home trying to lie to his boyfriend, until Ron took the phone out of his hand and did it much more smoothly. Nix planned to worry about the fact that it probably looked like they were having an affair when he wasn’t trying to save his life.

They gathered on the balcony, Sink looking out at the ocean like he owned the place, overseeing the box being brought out. He was silent until it was set down and the two of them had stopped bickering, and Nix was reminded of a schoolteacher waiting for the class to quiet down before starting the lesson.

It was a hell of a lesson.

It was also a hell of a lot of bullshit, about his father’s legacy and what he’d thought Nix could do with it. The Stanhope Nixon he’d known had never had faith in anyone but himself. If Nix found an alternative to palladium in these boxes, it wouldn’t be because his father had expected it.

Part of him wanted to tell Sink exactly that, but before he could another man walked into the room. Sink said, “We’d like to keep Ron’s cover intact, and keep this whole thing as quiet as possible, so we’re gently suggesting you don’t leave the premises. Agent Lipton here will make sure you have everything you need.”

Nix couldn’t tell what part of that was a threat. Maybe all of it. Agent Lipton certainly looked like he could take him, without the armor at least.

Until Sink was gone, and Lipton smiled at him. “Sorry about that. Call me Carwood, please.”

“Is that your real name?” Nix asked suspiciously. Then he spun around. “Wait, is Ron even _your_ real name?”

“Sure.” Ron shrugged. “The last name was fake.”

“That’s a little flimsy, isn’t it?”

“And yet, it worked on you.”

Carwood seemed to agree with him. There was an odd look on his face, his tone too casual when he said to Ron, “I thought you were deeper undercover than that.”

“Sink wouldn’t tell you?” Ron asked.

Carwood shook his head.

“Guess he wanted you have other things on your mind,” Ron said thoughtfully.

“Lot of other things,” Carwood agreed.

The suspense might’ve been killing Nix a little. “Were you on some secret mission too? Is there anything I should know about, oh, the state of our national security? The end of the world, maybe?”

“No,” Carwood said simply.

“His poker face is almost as good as yours,” Nix said to Ron.

Carwood laughed. “I mean it, it’s not exciting. I was just hanging around the desert for a few days waiting for something to happen. Nothing did.”

“Are you allowed to tell me that?” Nix asked.

“It’d only be telling if I told you what I was waiting for,” Carwood said.

“The desert, huh? I always knew there was something sketchy about the grand canyon,” Nix mused.

Carwood clapped him on the shoulder as he walked passed. “I was in New Mexico.”

And that was a lot more interesting than national security. Nix stared at Ron hard, and Ron just turned and followed Carwood inside.

Later, Nix took a break from all the hard work of synthesizing an entirely new element to go looking for some more lithium dioxide. He was feeling weaker, and Ron felt disturbingly similar to his drug dealer.

He found his babysitters tucked away in a corner, Ron leaning comfortably against a wall with Carwood caging him in. Ron had his hands fisted in Carwood’s shirt to keep him close, and Carwood had his fingers tangled in Ron’s hair. “The last time Sink wouldn’t tell me where you were—”

“I know,” Ron said. “This wasn’t that.”

“What was it, then?”

“He doesn’t tell me everything either.”

Carwood tugged on his hair in reproach. “Tells you more than me.”

“He thinks Nixon will be useful,” Ron said.

“Is he right?” Carwood asked.

“I think so,” Ron said. That felt nice. It almost had Nix feeling generous enough to give them some privacy, but then Ron asked, “Is it true nothing happened in the desert?”

And Carwood started to smile. “What do you know about Norse mythology?”

…

By the time Dick got back from the board meeting in New York, Nix wasn’t dying anymore. The arc reactor glowed whiter, brighter, and there was no hoping he wouldn’t notice. Maybe that he wouldn’t say anything at first, but not that he wouldn’t see it.

The choice was taken out of his hands when Ron said, “So, how are you feeling?”

“Not dying, for the moment,” he said.

And behind him, Dick said, “For the moment?”

That was the moment Nix really and truly regretted hiring Ron. Never mind that he might be dead right now otherwise. It might have been worth it just to avoid that infuriating look on his face. Infuriating because he was entirely expressionless, but Nix just _knew_ the bastard was smug as hell.

“Ron’s a spy,” he blurted out. Dick blinked. Ron continued to look unfazed. “So that’s… also a secret I was keeping from you.”

Carwood looked between them with a frown. “I think we should probably—well, our job is done.”

“I don’t think we’ve met,” Dick said to him.

“He’s Ron’s spy partner,” Nix said.

Before they left, Ron stopped by Nix’s side and asked, “You know what happens next?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. owns my soul?” Nix guessed.

“They might be in touch,” Ron said vaguely. “If you need something from us, you have my number.”

“That goes for you too,” Carwood said to Dick.

“Of course,” Ron said, looking at Carwood strangely, as if he thought that went without saying. Carwood shook his head, and Ron’s eyes widened minutely. “Oh. Oh, I—of course. You both have our personal line.”

Dick slowly stepped further into the room, looking between the two of them. Finally he nodded. “Thank you.”

“It was nice to meet you both,” Carwood said. He curled his fingers around Ron’s wrist, and Ron let himself be led away without another word. Nix figured they knew their way out. Dick watched them go, expression unreadable.

When they were alone, they managed to find seats on the couch without saying a word, a solid cushion of space between them. Nix hated that cushion.

As soon as this was over with, he was buying a new cushion.

Well, he was having Ron buy a new cushion. Or, no, he was hiring a new assistant, a real assistant, and having _them_ buy a new cushion.

“So,” Dick said eventually.

“I was going to tell you,” Nix said.

And he didn’t know what he was expecting—anger, exasperation, some combination of the two—but Dick just stared at his hands and sighed. “You’ve never had to tell me anything.”

“That’s true,” Nix realized. He reached out and turned Dick’s face toward him, and Dick didn’t resist. He looked, of all things, embarrassed. “Jesus Christ, that’s true. You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I thought you were avoiding me,” Dick said sheepishly.

“I was,” Nix said. “But that’s different, I was dying. What’s your excuse?”

“That’s not an excuse,” Dick said. “You know that’s not an excuse, right?”

“We’re not talking about me right now,” Nix said. Which was of course absolute bullshit, but Dick let him get away with it.

“I was… well, I was trying to run a company,” Dick said. “And you had Ron.”

Nix frowned. “I told you there was no reason to be jealous.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You know I’ve always preferred redheads.”

“I know. I wasn’t—it wasn’t that.”

“You have prettier eyes.”

Dick pushed abruptly to his feet, and Nix shut his mouth. For what was maybe the third or fourth time in the near decade they’d known each other, Dick seemed to not know quite what to do with himself. Finally, he sat down on the edge of the coffee table to face Nix, folded his hands together, and said, “He was doing my job.”

“You do remember I promoted you, right?” Nix asked.

“It’s just taken some getting used to, that’s all,” Dick said.

It took longer than it should have for Nix to process that, genius that he was. In his defense, it was also insane. Nix couldn’t get out of bed in the morning without Dick; something like that didn’t stop because of a career change. Nix leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and wrapped his hand around Dick’s wrist, thumb rubbing over his soft sweater. “Are you used to it yet?”

“I left you alone for two weeks and you nearly died,” Dick said. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d say it feels like business as usual.”

Nix reached out with his other hand and pulled Dick’s apart, cradling one of Dick’s hands in both of his and focusing his eyes there. “You know, it’s funny.”

“What’s that?”

“Last time I nearly died, everything changed.”

“This time not so much,” Dick observed.

Nix hummed. “Feels like I should do something with my—what is this, my third chance at life now?”

“What do you want to do?” Dick asked, half a smile on his face, so fond Nix had to look away again.

He brought Dick’s hand to his face and kissed his fingers. They smelled like sandalwood. “I want to go swimming.”

“Really?”

“Well, I want to have sex in the shallow end of the pool. Baby steps.”

True to his word for once in his life, that’s exactly what they did. Nix sat on the top step and watched Dick swim laps. The water was clear blue and chlorine-scented, and he idly ran his fingers through it without a thought of fear, nothing tightening his stomach except desire.

When Dick circled back to him, Nix finally got his mouth on the pale arch of his neck, and Dick showed him just how long he could hold his breath underwater.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Back in Black by AC/DC.


End file.
